Highlights-London
I stayed near the club and in my room (working on notes like these) until it was time to go to the street food tour. I arrived at Waterloo station via the bus (Tube service was curtailed due the London Half-Marathon). It was cold and dreary, sometimes with light rain. That’s London weather for you as I heard a street performer say. That may be “London weather,” but I wasn’t dressed for it so I was cold. I stayed inside the Southbank Centre until the food tour started. It was led by Floriane (French transplant to London 10 years prior, works for a company that does event management, English very good). We walked, tasted, rode bikes, and tasted some more 1-4pm. The other members of the group were a French family so the tour was in French and English. We had some small items at the stalls positioned outside the Royal Festival Hall and Southbank Centre and Camden Market after the bike ride.
Notable Items
I fell behind providing daily posts because I can’t write the Notable Items section quickly. Actually, I can write them quickly, just badly. I switched to writing daily summaries and will write about “things gone wrong” as I can.
Getting to the start location of the food tour was more challenging than I expected given London’s wonderful public transport system. Isn’t that always the case with near disasters? No one makes a plan with, “Here’s where things will go badly.” Still it happens. My plans often go awry, I just never know where. That keeps things interesting.
All the buses coming to the stop with the route number I needed had “Oxford Circus” signage. I needed to go Waterloo station, but I thought, “These are just special buses. I’ll get one that goes to Waterloo from Oxford Circus. I waited fifteen minutes at Oxford Circus before noticing that every bus with the route number I wanted said, “Oxford Circus.” This was a noteworthy pattern.
Consulting the map application again, I saw the “there may be issues” icon that I ignored earlier. There was no service along this route to Waterloo because of the London Landmarks Half Marathon. I took the Tube (Bakerloo Line), instead.
Even though I didn’t need the food tour to stay awake, it was still a nice experience. The problem I often have with food tours is filling up too early and then only being able to nibble on good stuff at the end. Today, I had a plan to pace myself.
Our leader was a French woman. She spoke very good English having lived and worked in England for ten years after her au pair gig was up. Brexit was a cliffhanger for her, but details don’t belong in a food tour narrative (or so I’m told). The other participants were four members of a French family. Our guide conducted the tour in both languages.
We started with a collection of food tents by the Royal Festival Hall and Southbank Center. It’s an every weekend thing. The offerings were:
1. Dosa chaat, a crepe with potatoes and spices, almost sweet, very large (I ate 2/3).
2. Sweet potato tempura fries with sauces. The guide noted that they have ruined her eating regular sweet potato fries. I’m not surprised. A shoe fried in tempura batter would be tasty. I ate just a few
3. Afghan chicken wrap, messy. The guide said that people regularly spill items out of the wrap and onto their clothes so the trick was to eat them leaning far over your shoes. I adopted my “Peering Over the Edge of the Grand Canyon” pose and escaped unscathed.
4. A very large cookie, perhaps 3xnormal size. I chose pistachio and didn’t finish.
The guide noted my limited food intake, hardly expected on a tour titled, “No Diet Club.” I told her that I was saving room for part 2 of the tour.
We walked to Covent Garden and rented bikes from those stations you see everywhere in big European cities. We didn’t rent bikes somewhere closer to the Southbank Center because we had to climb up stairs to cross the Thames and finding a bike rack would have required backtracking. The guide did well to marshall us all to Camden Market given traffic, buses, and signals. There were a few short stops to collect stragglers.
As we walked around Camden Market (packed on Sunday), I mentioned that I am a sociologist and observe people more than things. Our guide asked if I were observing her, which is why I shouldn’t mention observing people so readily. Unlike other people who have asked me this question, she didn’t seem like the type to panic so I said yes, but I wasn’t doing research. I didn’t mention this blog (which is why I’m not using her name).
At Camden Market, we consumed:
1. Tacos (birria beef, shell fried but not hard)
2. Grilled cheese sandwiches. I had Stilton and English Cheddar. You won’t get that in US street food.
3. A Humble Crumble mini-dessert (cinnamon apple at the bottom, crumble on that, custard on that, vanilla mascarpone cream on the top. The small, tasting-size cups we had are not available for the general public (which means I’m never going to eat there, I’m not looking for that many calories in a cup).
